Sakura Tsumatsu, C7: Elucidate [Silver Circle #240]

[player_4]

Ten o'clock in Dorm Ten, and the three inhabitants lazed cosily in their beds, talking their fatigue away. Owing to a staff public holiday on the Monday, as well as a staff training day that Friday, the girls had a four-day weekend, and were making the most of it by doing nothing.

"Emi, truth or truth?" Hanako asked with a smile. The girls no longer played Truth or Dare, owing to Hanako's dares being surprisingly gritty, and Emi's general inability to think of good ones. It wasn't a game the girls liked to play to often, but with their various interests and pursuits, this was hardly a problem. It punctured the

"Truth, I suppose," Emi said, blushing a little.

"Have you ever thought about another boy in that way since getting with Ryuichi?"

Emi flushed a little darker. "No! No, honest! He's the one for me, I couldn't do something like that..."

"Not even in passing?"

Hanako continued to press the matter for a few moments, though in Sakura's gut she knew the answer to be true. That's just who Emi is.

(Who Emi was)

"Okay, fine; your turn," Hanako finally said, giving up and lying back in her bed, looking a little disappointed.

"Sakura, truth or truth?" Emi asked, continuing the inevitable cycle a game of three players forces.

"Truth," Sakura said simply. Get the question out of the way.

Emi fell silent for about fifteen seconds, before piping up, "If you could go back in time to a point in your life, where would you go? Oh, and if you had the chance to change it, would you?"

"Oooh, deep!" Hanako grinned whilst Sakura wrenched internally. On the whole, she took most things in her stride. Her poker face was deeply embedded into her personality: if it didn't look like it phased her, it probably didn't.

Yet she hated to disappoint, which was why she gave this question thought. Her life was irritatingly grey, and if anybody tried to bring something to the fore, they would only be disappointed. Perhaps the constant poker face had affected her, made her flat. She would be happy about the life's positives, and unhappy about its negatives. Then she gets over it and moves on.

That was how Sakura Tsumatsu worked. Condition. Response. Keep moving. Other than that, little else matters. Hanako knew this, which was probably why she was grinning that way.

(She always used to grin like that)

"Come on, an answer, please!" Hanako egged the girl on for a reply, and finally Sakura caved in. The only obvious one she could think of.

"I would probably go back to the time my parents separated," she said, annoyed for having to share this part of her soul in the name of a game. "It's not something I ever understood fully. It would just be something I wish I could understand."

"...Would you change it?" Emi asked gently after a moment.

Again, Sakura paused. Then she smiled.

"No."

"...Seriously?"

"Seriously," Sakura said simply. "I learned how to be responsible, and I learned what makes people tick. I reckon if it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't be who I am now. And if that were so..."

"So don't you... miss you mother?"

"Not in the least," Sakura said with a shrug. "Don't bear a grudge, though. Besides, there are bigger things for me to be annoyed about at the moment."

"Such as what?"

sakura grimaced. "Did you hear what Kinuka Asano said in the debate last week?

The shelter offered by the dealership was minimal, but Sakura sought shelter underneath the awning that fringed the sides of the building, the rainwater collecting into a cascading river that poured from a gap and splattered noisily onto the dark concrete.

Weirdly, Sakura's mind wasn't on keeping herself dry as much as it was on keeping Reila's letters in one piece. They stayed tucked in her bag, Sakura offering them the best safeguard she could against the elements.

For the best part of a day, these things had been the driving force behind Sakura's wish to live. To escape. To survive. The oath she had sworn to her dead classmate, the one she was going to honour, it had driven her to the impossible, to build something that could take on the government. In spite of the cynicism, part of her believed they could have pulled it off, too.

Sakura ran the paper between her fingers and let the rain drip idly from her lank hair. Around her, the last few people were being killed off. Yukio had probably had his brains blown just then, Itsuo was walking round on some sort of secret mission, Kinuka was probably still looking for blood, and Sakura? Sakura found herself staring into space, thinking about philosophical ideals that were of no use any more.

She could be stabbed any minute and her dying thoughts would be of being a postwoman.

Leaning back against a car, she closed her eyes once more. She had really exhausted every alternative. No, correction: the alternatives had exhausted her, and all the fight against fighting had been sucked out of her now, following a battery of defeats. Emi. Suzuka. Satoru. Probably Yukio as well by now. She had stood by their side, and now?

Her eyes stayed shut, She'd thought about this so much now it was fatiguing her.

For the first time in so many years, she wished her mother would appear now and make everything right.

She, the independent one, now needed to turn to somebody.

It was now that Sakura Tsumatsu noticed how heavy the assault rifle was in her hand.

It was the worst start to a debate that she'd ever had to endure. She was trying to look as cool as a cucumber on the surface, but the more Kinuka spoke, the more Sakura felt like she'd had maggots injected beneath her skin.

Indeed, the woman with the green dress looked a little dumbfounded, as did the opposition, a group of smarmy students whose faces broke out into identical smirks as they thought they could decimate those boarding school snobs.

"Speaker two for the affirmative," said the woman: "Fukama Masahiko."

"Cow!" Sakura heard Kinuka hiss under her breath. Sakura felt her fists ball up.

A short boy with puppy fat stood up and calmly began making his point. Irritatingly, (yet predictably), he undermined everything Kinuka had said. In particular, the small audience gave a chuckle when he pointed out that although Japan has plenty of trees, it, like the rest of the planet, had too many humans for sustainability, so perhaps they should make furniture out of people. Sakura didn't bother pointing out that Kinuka probably did have a hat-stand like that somewhere. Raiden seemed to be squirming like a ferret, whilst Kinuka was inspecting her fingernails. Poker-face risen, the girl in the middle sat stock-still, politely furious.

Sakura silently scanned the three students, Natsuki Igurashi, Masahiko Fukuma and, most interestingly, Yukita Kuroi; the remaining student who looked a little like what Iori would look like once he hit puberty and developed acne.

Finally, the Masahiko boy sat down with a closing quote about protecting the sacred lands of the Fatherland (from one of those old Republic propaganda quotes), and sat down, his face returning to the satisfied grin from before.

Sakura whispered to Kinuka. "Any bright comebacks?"

"Yes, a few. You can tell him he should wear a shirt that fits properly to start with..."

Sakura ignored her. "Any ideas, Raiden?"

"Hmm," Raiden fidgeted akwkwardly, his notes shuffled out of order. Sakura noticed that Kinuka had doodled hearts on her otherwise-empty cue cards. "Did that Natsuki girl mention legal restrictions?"

"She said they should be tightened because of the ozone layer," Sakura grumbled.

"I use lots of hairsprays though, and the ozone layer's still there," Kinuka chipped in. "And besides, I like warm weather."

"..."

Sakura closed her eyes and wished she were on a beach somewhere. All felt lost. The odds were against her, and the enemies were better prepared. Knowing she would have to stand up this second, Sakura did something she would usually detest.

"Raiden, I'm going to use your points about opening up canopies and economic development."

"...What?" the boy clearly blanched.

"Speaker two for the negative: Tsumatsu Sakura."

"Sorry" she whispered as she took to her feet, although it was possible she only imagined apologising. If she was going to recover this, she would have to play dirty. And if that included screwing over her teammate, her friend, her ally, even for a little while, then so be it. This was an emergency.

She wasn't going to let them win.

She wasn't going to let Kinuka Asano fuck up her night.

The situation was disgustingly metaphorical. The letters, the symbol of peace hung in her left arm; the AK47, the icon of war, in her right. The decision now was whether to be left-handed or right-handed. The moral dilemma had come, no, passed her by, but now the illusions had gone and she faced the rain and the dark, she found her right hand flexing more.

Putting the letters away, she shuffled from beneath her shelter and walked round the cars. It was a good idea to patrol her spot now.

Shots rang from the south. Shots were now ringing from the north. Whatever had happened, that meant three people were gone now, probably including Yukio. Final five. An irony, then, that the girl with a rifle was yet to use it. And the cameras were pointing at her, waiting for her to change her mind.

She long knew it, but people were revolting creatures. From the mothers who abandon their children without a second glance, to the girls who hurt those around them and laugh about it later. It was a stupid time to begin working it out, but Sakura had always tried to lead by example. She didn't stand for any nonsense from anybody in the hope that those around her who were weaker would learn to do the same. Standing up, being somebody, becoming her potential... this is what mattered to Sakura.

And she hoped it mattered to those around her.

But who was left to follow her example now? Those that might had changed in the last 72 hours, and those that she hoped would her the message were...

Sakura saw a corpse slumped on the floor, now saturated with water. She approached it and saw bullet holes in Taki Yoshomoto's chest. They looked close-range, almost execution style. The blood had long since been washed away, as had Sakura's shock at seeing dead bodies.

Her left hand flexed unconsciously.

Sakura had realised she would never cry over her dead classmates, She would not think of them like that any more for quite a long time, of which time was a luxury she was severely lacking. Because as she looked down on the body, she heard an interruption in the rainfall.

Footsteps. Footsteps coming her way.

Sakura shuffled bodily away from Taki, leaning against the cars, keeping as low as she could. If this was who she thought it was...

The wound in her flank made her stumble.

BEEEEEEEEEEP

Sakura had slipped against the side of a red sports car, and her left hand had gripped instinctively on the side mirror, all but pulling it off. The car alarm had sounded. The assailant was illuminated against the glowing gold. Russet hair now unfashioned and wet, clothes clinging to her skin.

Her again.

They didn't even exchange words this time. Kinuka took to arms as Sakura steadied her gun between both hands.

"If you could go back in time to a point in your life, where would you go?

"To that point two seconds ago when I set off that damned alarm."

If you had the chance to change it, would you?"

"I'll tell you in a moments."

Her right arm pulled the trigger with surprising ease.

((BOOM SHAKA LAKA. Vote time! Wait for it to be opened please. PC control approved from Sophie and Natarii.
David,if anything needs changing... i'll try my best, but I tried to keep it minimal. Good luck, you~))